The Muddy Street
by Pretty Shimmie
Summary: A series of vignettes. A simple story about Kankuro during a week of dark and stormy nights and the enlightening experience he has.
1. Torrential Downpour

It was a dark and stormy night.

Rain was uncommon; you could possibly even use the word rare, in Suna. They were so far out in the middle of the desert that there were no trees to support air currents and cloud movement. But that night a torrential downpour was occurring. Lightning flashed and danced in jagged streaks across the sky. Thunder rumbled, echoing off of buildings deep into the Village of Sand.

Kankuro knew that Gaara, his little brother, the Kazekage, was probably lying on his bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling and watching nature's electricity flirt with the shadows. Gaara would be wearing his brooding face.

Temari, he could bet, was calming herself down or cleaning something. She had never dealt well with thunderstorms. Kankuro could just picture his sister. Her hair would be down and the fishnet would be discarded into a monstrous laundry pile. She would be wearing lounge pants and a tank top, sporting headphones as her only accessory. Her hands would be kept busy by repairing any damages made to her massive fan. She might be, if not caring for her weapon, washing her brothers' dirty dishes. Even though she pretended and tried not to show it, she really did love Kankuro and Gaara.

Kankuro couldn't be kept in the house on a night like that like his brother and sister. He was far too antsy; his mind far too preoccupied. Temari could only shake her head at her younger brother, watching him rip open the door and run into the horrendous night. She had learned long ago that Kankuro was unpredictable and had stopped trying to understand his enigmatic decisions.

The puppet master bolted to somewhere; anywhere. He had been so determined to get to a place that he had forgotten his hat and makeup at home. 'Oh well,' he thought. They wouldn't have done him much good in this weather. So he had left with only his black shirt, pants, and sandals.

Kankuro kept up his fast pace, letting the standing and growing water splash up to his shins. The raindrops were cutting at his face and shoulders like razor blades. He could tell his upper layer of skin was going to hurt later on.

Kankuro couldn't explain how he was feeling. He knew that he was sick and tired of his monotonous life, of being controlled and manipulated like all ninja are. 'Just like Karasu,' he thought bitterly, reminded of his puppet. All he had been doing for the past four months was the same routine. Go on a mission or two. The same sort of mission, mind you. Stay at home. Eat. Sleep. Shower. Shit. His seventeenth birthday had come and gone without too much of a fuss. Temari had attempted to make a cake for the occasion, but Kankuro could feel his throat getting tight as he stared down at the pitiful little cake. He knew that under the messily-spread lavender frosting and the three candles Temari had found mixed in with crayons and scissors was something blackened and distorted. But one look at Temari's hopeful, proud, and pleading face could have made him eat the whole thing. It also broke his heart. So when Kankuro couldn't help crying, Temari sighed and shoved the cake down the drain, defeated, as Gaara said, "Wimp." Kankuro never could tell Temari why he couldn't eat her cake.

Slowing down his pace so that his feet dragged and trudged through the muddy street, Kankuro knew his life was a mess. He had no friends. He was lonely. He was moody. His siblings couldn't understand him. He was close to suffering a midlife-crisis at seventeen. If there was one word that could describe him, it would be pathetic.

Some lightning streaked across the bleak sky. Kankuro wearily raised his head. Something was resting in the middle of the street about one hundred feet from him. He walked closer to the blob, apathetic and curious both at the same time. His brown, wet hair clung to his head, making it itch. He scratched at his forehead. When he was about twenty feet away from the blob he realized that it was a person.

The person was sitting, facing him, with their legs stretched out in front of them, their feet at a right angle from the ground. It had its hands resting delicately on its lap. He could tell that it had long hair, but from his distance he still could not determine the gender. After all, he did know many men with femininely long hair. The person was literally covered with dark mud from head to toe. Their clothes clung to their body. On closer inspection, Kankuro saw that it was a skinny girl. As she sat in the puddle of sloppy mud, letting the rain smother her, Kankuro approached apprehensively. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling, her white teeth standing out in comparison against her muddy skin.

She opened her eyes and closed her mouth all in one movement. Her head angled upwards to look at him. Rain dripped in her blue eyes. He was now maybe, not even, a foot from her. He stood above her and looked down at her. They stared at each other in silence, listening to the rain pour down and the lightning crack and the thunder roll. "What are you doing?" Kankuro asked. She blinked. "Sitting," she replied. "And yourself?" "Standing." The girl wiped mud from her lips and smiled. "That's a nice answer." Kankuro shook his head rapidly to release some water from his hair, only to have it soak in the rain again. "Thanks. Care to tell me why you're sitting by yourself in the middle of a storm, covered in mud?" Although it didn't look like she was pondering an answer, she took a minute before answering him. "I suppose I'm emptying myself and filling myself up at the same time."

"Oh?" Kankuro said. She smiled again. "I'm letting out all of the bad things in my life and replacing it with good things. I just moved here, you see." Kankuro didn't say anything. He merely nodded. 'I suppose it's hard to let things out when you're empty inside,' he thought. All of a sudden, the girl brought her right hand from her lap, cupped it, dug it into the sopping earth, and flung mud at Kankuro. It hit his face from his nose to his right ear. He stepped back, startled. "Don't wipe it off," she said. "You looked like you needed to be emptied and filled up."

The mud dripped down his chin, running down his neck into his clothes. It tingled a little bit. He immediately countered her statement. "How can I let something out if there isn't anything to get rid of?" She started to laugh. It was soft and friendly. "There's always something that can be let out," she said. He was going to say something, but he stopped himself. "Oh." This girl was very strange. "Would you...would you mind if I sat down with you?" he asked. "I wouldn't mind at all," she replied. And so he sat down across from her, his legs straight out and his feet at a right angle from the ground. "My name's Kankuro." She looked at him almost shyly; staring at him with her blue eyes. "I'm Ko."

Ko reached over to him and pulled his sandals off. He glanced at her feet. She was barefoot too. She was wearing shorts that ended at her mid thigh and a fitted t-shirt. Their color was impossible to tell. Her hair was long and wavy and pushed out of her face. She would probably be washing mud out of her hair for weeks. Ko took her foot and pressed it against his. For some reason, Kankuro didn't pull away. "So Kankuro," she said. "Care to tell me why you're sitting with me in the middle of a storm, covered in mud?" Kankuro smiled at her. He was emptying his emptiness and filling it up with something else. Something...nice.

So when Suna woke up to find the Kazekage's eccentric brother sitting in the middle of the street with a female stranger, both caked in mud, Kankuro was happy to say he didn't care. He and Ko stood up. The mud cracked. It began to chip off. Ko scooted up to him and smiled. She cleared some mud off his cheek before she kissed it and walked away, leaving bits and pieces of her mud shell behind.

Thunder rumbled from the dark morning clouds.

Kankuro smiled.

It was supposed to rain again that night.


	2. Pouring

"Kankuro," Temari demanded from her position on the bottom stair. Her hand gripped the post of the rail tightly. "Just where do you think you're going?"

Kankuro could not believe this.

Here he was, again, heading off into the night without his Kabuki paint and hat. The rain, although not coming down with the same amount of gusto it had the previous night, was still raining buckets.

When he had returned that morning, Temari had flashed a newspaper in his face. The front cover of it blared: '_SECRET LOVE AFFAIR FOR KAZEKAGE'S BROTHER?_' It sported a very blurry picture of him and Ko, one you could only see two people's outlines in. He had rolled his eyes, ignoring the accusation, and stalked up the stairs, exhausted from staying awake for close to twenty-four hours.

And now, here he was again, leaving into the horrendous weather. Temari knew something was up. Especially when he turned towards her, his left hand still tightly wrapped around the door knob, and said, "I'm going out." "To where?" she demanded with urgency. "Out with a friend," he said quietly.

"_Who?_ Kankuro, you don't _have_ any friends!" The brother and sister both flinched as awful honesty poured out of her mouth. Even though that was what she had observed to be the truth, Temari still felt badly about it. She knew he was defensive about his lack of friendship and she wasn't keen to have her younger brother stalk away from the house, still raging from a fight.

His eyes shifted, a little downcast. "Um, well..." She was silent as she waited for him to raise his voice and completely bitch at her with his leave-your-nose-in-your-own-business-I-do-too-have-friends speech. "You see, I met this girl last night." Temari's eyes practically fell out of her head. "And she was really nice. We talked a lot about stuff." Kankuro _met_ a girl, and he had _not one_ pornographic thing to say about her! Temari noted that the mystery girl must have repulsive facial features and no ass. She now desperately wished the clarity in the newspaper's picture had come through. How bad did she look?

"I was going to meet her again tonight." Kankuro mumbled. Temari cocked her head. "Kankuro, I think it's great that you've actually met a girl without wanting to get in her pants," she said with a laugh in the back of her throat. He cracked a smile and replied, "Well, not yet, at least."

The tension in the air shattered as the siblings began to laugh at and with each other. She went up to him with an embrace and chuckled out, "I'm proud of you, little guy." He smiled. Her enormous four pigtails stuck out of the back of her head like a porcupine, but the highest ones were still not as tall as he was. Temari had stopped growing years ago, except maybe in her chest. The top of her head hit him at his chin. Years ago, when they were all still genin, he had been known as the squat, fat brother. Now he was known as the incredibly tall, six-foot-four-and-skinny brother that was still a little weird.

He put his arms around his short older sister with a smile. "Love you sis," he said. She giggled and said, "Love you too Kankuro!" She reached up, standing on her tiptoes to muss up Kankuro's brown hair. He laughed a little.

"What on earth are you two doing?" a harsh voice rang out. From their hug, the both looked at the top of the stairs. There stood Gaara, looking as powerful as ever, with his arms crossed and darkness seeping from behind him. Both Kankuro and Temari began to laugh.

The power and frustration immediately leaked from Gaara's face to be replaced with a mix of confusion and loneliness. He greatly disliked being left out of things his older brother and sister experienced. It reminded him too much of before, when they made it a point to exclude him from everything out of fear of him. Temari gave him a comforting smile and, while still hugging Kankuro with one arm, extended the other out to her youngest brother.

Gaara quickly trudged down the stairs to stumble into his brother and sister's arms. They smiled as they welcomed him into their little circle of love. The family tightly embraced each other.

* * *

"Ah, there you are. I figured I'd be seeing you again tonight," Ko called out from underneath an overhang, keeping herself from being soaked.

Kankuro smiled slightly as he walked up to her.

The family love-fest had disbanded after a few minutes in each others' presences and Kankuro had swiftly escaped to the outside. Ko was sitting, protected from the rain, in a relaxed manner. Kankuro came to a halt in front of her, delighted that she looked cute and that he was no longer being drenched.

It was obvious she had gotten very wet on her walk to this spot, because her hair was still a bit dark and not quite as shiny and wavy as it would have been if her hair was dry. Her dress also rippled with air-drying. He couldn't help glancing over her dress. It was yellow, with thick cotton straps and cinched elastic tightening under her bust line. The rest hung limply down to the middle of her thighs.

He loomed above her as she looked up at him and cracked a smile. He couldn't help but smile in return. She patted an empty spot next to her, which he immediately filled.

"It's good to see you again," he said. She smiled a little and looked at him. Ko reached for his gloved hand and began to play with his fingers. Goosebumps appeared on his arms; her hands were cool and soft, giving him chills. "I'm glad I got to see you too. It's weird not knowing anyone."

He nodded. He knew the feeling all too well. Kankuro was reminded of his first visit to Konoha, when he and his siblings had been on a mission to overthrow the ninja and the government in the Fire Country. He automatically felt guilty.

"Come to think of it, I really don't know all that much about you," she said with a bit more shyness than she had started with. Kankuro looked at her. "Well, what do you want to know?" he asked. He cringed a little as she twiddled with his pinky; the only spot he was ticklish was on his left pinky finger.

"Well, how old are you?" she asked. "Seventeen," he replied easily. She proudly stated, "Sixteen, almost seventeen."

They looked at each other, silent. Their gazes were both expectant.

Another moment of silence.

"Well, aren't you going to ask another question?"

"It's your turn to ask a question."

They stared at each other, a bit dumbfounded that they both spoke at the same time. Ko began to giggle with infectiousness-Kankuro soon joined in. They both laughed at each other, his hand in hers.

Kankuro calmed himself while Ko still let out the remnants of giggles. "Alright then, I'll ask the next question." She smiled at him. "It's rude if only one person asks questions. It has to be a mutual effort to get to know another person." "I've never thought about it that way before," he told her. She giggled and twiddled with his pinky some more. He could feel his toes clench. He tried awfully hard to make his body not respond to his ticklish spot.

"Okay...hm." Kankuro thought hard about a question to ask. "What's your favorite color?" She switched from joggling his pinky to twirling his thumb. He felt his body relax. "Mine's aquamarine," she said with no hesitation. "And yours?" "Well, I don't know," he said. "I've never really been a fan of choosing colors." She arched an eyebrow at him. "Okay, so you just answered your question. You feel bad that all the colors can't be your favorite, so you just don't pick one."

He laughed and lightly pushed at her shoulder. "I didn't say that. You're putting words into my mouth." She smiled sweetly and said, "But you were implying it. Didn't you used to think that all the crayons in the box had feelings and if you didn't use them all the ones you didn't use would feel left out?" He tilted his head back and laughed, letting it sink in for a few moments.

"Of course I didn't!" he said. She scoffed at him. "Well, no need to get a superiority complex about your crayons." He laughed a little more. "No...No...What I mean is, when I was a kid, there was absolutely no time to be a kid."

She looked at him, her face serious for the first time. "Well, why is that?" she inquired. "Does this count as your next question? What my childhood was like?" She considered it, her eyes rolling to look at the ceiling while she thought. "Yeah...Yeah I think so. What was your childhood like?"

Kankuro took it upon himself to retrieve his hand from her, as she had moved back to playing with his left pinky again. She seemed a little disappointed as he pulled it away, so he gently picked up one of her hands from her lap to move around in his. He squinted his eyes, thinking of how to begin.

"Well, when I was a kid, this city was a mess. My dad was the Kazekage, which is like the president of the country. They pick the Kazekage by you being the strongest ninja in the nation, and they can only get a new Kazekage if the old one dies." Kankuro took a short pause. "I think I remember having one of those in Waterfall," Ko said cautiously. "I don't remember what he was called though." Kankuro nodded. "Every country has one," he said.

He turned her hand over in his. He loved the feeling of it; soft and cool. Her fingers were long and thin, and her hand felt small in his large ones. He dutifully noted that her hands had no scars on them, as opposed to his rough, ninja-bred hands. "Well, my father was the one here. And I mean, even though he was my father, I never really loved him. He was kind of a bad guy. Open to corruption and all that. Because of him, our country was poor and always at war."

Ko listened carefully, intrigued. "So my dad was determined to make my mom pop out as many kids as she could. She died after my little brother was born." Kankuro didn't feel like mentioning Gaara's story to her. He wasn't eager to earn her pity or fear anytime soon. "From the time we could walk, my dad trained my sister, brother and I to be ninja. My little brother displayed the most talent as a ninja, so he focused on him. But my brother grew vengeful and angry, so everyone was afraid of him. My brother was so powerful; I spent my entire childhood afraid of my little brother," he mumbled quietly.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the rain. All around them, it poured.

He caressed her hand, relishing the feeling of it in his. He noticed her nails were painted a glossy pink. When he rubbed at them, they were smooth and delicate. He could have laughed at the contrast between his hands and hers.

Very gently, Ko laid her head on his shoulder. Or, at least she tried. Kankuro sank down a little to accommodate for the height difference they shared. He liked that he didn't have to slide down very far. Kankuro had noticed the day before that she wasn't all that much shorter than him, only by about five inches. He sank down a little more, just to please himself. He could feel her cheekbones swell slightly as she smiled her gratitude. "I'm really sorry that happened to you," she murmured.

"Why would you be sorry?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I just think it's sad that you never really could be a kid. The experiences you have as a child affect how you react to the world as an adult." Kankuro turned his head a little to see her. "I think I turned out well," he told her. She smiled a little wider. "Then why did you need a total emptying and filling last night?"

He pretended he was offended. "Well, goodness, let's all point out everything wrong with Kankuro!" She narrowed her eyes and smirked. "First there's your toes. Atrocious!" she teased.

Ko stood, her hand still held by Kankuro. She leaned over him. "Then there's your fashion sense. I could just die! And I won't even mention your eyebrows! Ugh!" She had started to laugh as she insulted him because he was tugging her arm. "I do not have all those things wrong with me!" he protested. He still held her hand, but used his free hand to push himself into a standing position. She was laughing as she tried to pull away.

"But what about you, hm?" Kankuro inquired in a sneaky voice. He held onto her hand tightly as he wrapped his other arm around her waist and picked her up. Her eyes went wide and she squealed though her giggles "Put me down! Put me down!" Her free hand went behind his neck and onto his shoulder to help support herself.

Kankuro chuckled as he, with her hand still clasped in his, motioned their hands to what he was analyzing. "Look at this hair. What a mess! Have you been washing it with rainwater? And look at that! Right there, on your shoulder! A freckle! How dare you have a freckle!" He was amazed at how light she was. He chalked it up to his practice of carrying puppets around everywhere he went.

"And then...there's your eyes..." He lost steam as he spoke, getting the chance to admire them. Ko and Kankuro both became very quiet, their chests heaving from being breathless. Their eyes were locked; his dark eyes contrasting with her blue ones. All they could pay attention to was their heavy breathing and the pouring rain and each other.

And just like that the moment was gone. He set her down and she pulled her arm off of him. They both awkwardly giggled, like two young children that had kissed each other on the cheek. He put a hand up and scratched the back of his head and she plucked at a strand in her hair, twirling it around her fingers.

He flattened the hair on the back of his head and mumbled, "Are my toes really atrocious?" Ko thrust her head back and began to laugh, loud and long. "Of course they aren't! I was just messing with you!" He smiled, reassured.

She pulled his hand as she walked out into the rain. "Come on," she said. "Let's go." His eyebrows rose. "To where?" he asked. "To right here." She dropped to her knees, scooped up a sopping handful of mud, and flung it at him. It hit him dead center on the chest. He stared down at it, shocked. "Hey! I just washed these!"

"It looks like you'll have to wash them again!" She screamed with laughter as he ran towards her, mud thick in his hands. One handful hit her right thigh, while the other hit her collarbone. It seeped down her chest. "That wasn't fair!" she squealed. Ko leaped at Kankuro, successfully clinging to his front. And then they both fell in the mud.

The next morning, the rain had stopped and Temari had left early to bring a few cups of coffee to Gaara. She cringed as she looked at all of the mud holes. Mud disgusted her. She meticulously made her way through the jungle of mud holes, nearing the Kazekage's office.

And that's when she saw Kankuro, laughing his head off, completely drenched with mud, running down the street with a very pretty girl, also very muddy, holding on to him piggyback-style.

Temari nearly fainted.


	3. Raining

**A/N: This chapter is rated a high T for some language and thematic events.**

**UPDATE 2013: I've scanned this chapter for some editing mistakes. Hope you don't cringe at the ending now.**

* * *

"Number one, she's sixteen. Number two, her favorite color is aquamarine. Number three...ugh!" Kankuro tossed the pen down, letting it clatter on the desk as he threw his hands up in the air in frustration.

He hated that he was a list-maker.

It was just something that he did. When he needed to clear his mind, he wrote out lists. For each day, he made a to-do list to keep himself focused and organized. He was always the one to make the grocery lists, reminding Temari of what they all needed. He made lists at the end of the days of things he had done. Those he strapped together in a folder so he could go back to look at them and be reminded of what he did, in chronological order.

Now, he was making a list of all the things he knew about Ko.

Along with the things he had written, he knew she loved instant ramen, dancing to music, swimming, doing the dishes, children, and attention. He knew she didn't like blow-drying her hair, shoes, having responsibilities, liars, and people who took themselves too seriously. He knew she wanted to put an assortment of colored flowers in a pot and set them on her window so the rest of the world would see the flowers and be happy. He knew she could cook. He knew she always did thirty lunges, twenty five sit-ups, and thirty butt exercises in the morning. He knew she couldn't sing.

And he knew that she was hot.

Kankuro shifted uncomfortably. For some reason, that thought didn't sit well with him. It felt dirty to him. As if thinking that was degrading to her. Like it would make her less of a person.

He scratched that off the list and held his forehead in his hands. A sigh escaped his mouth.

Of course he knew she was hot. He thought just about every girl he'd ever met was hot. He couldn't deny that she was physically pleasing to look at. Considering most of the girls he knew were kunoichi with exhausting workout regiments, she had one of the nicest bodies he'd ever seen.

Kankuro stood from his desk and walked to his bed, where he collapsed.

His big room was very dark, with black rugs lining the hardwood floor, maroon walls, and black furniture. His large, king-sized bed was settled in the middle, facing the window. To his left was his desk, with all sorts of lists scattered about. To his right was his worktable, where a new puppet was in the works. Wood shavings were heaped in messy piles across the floor, mixed among the discarded kunais and senbon needles.

Thinking about Ko in his gothic room bothered him. He imagined her coming to his house, meeting his family, and coming into his room. He imagined them kissing. He imagined running his hands over her. He imagined other things. But she didn't fit in his room. She would glow like a nightlight in there.

He glanced over in the corner. Karasu hung there, lifeless. He wondered what Ko would think of his puppets, if he ever got the nerve to tell her about them. What would she think of his Kabuki paint? Of his ability to kill instantaneously?

He didn't dwell on it.

Instead, he glanced at the fading light through his window, at the rain that streaked the glass.

He stood and searched for his sandals.

* * *

Ko was barefoot, yet again.

She was wearing another dress, this one a charcoal grey. The ties came around the back of her neck, leaving her back bare. It was a stark contrast to her pale skin, her legs shimmering in comparison. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, and she didn't seem to mind that she was getting wet.

She was balancing on a plank of wood when Kankuro came upon her. It was attached to a fence that lined a shopping market near the heart of the city. Ko would place one unsteady foot in front of the other, moving along at a slow, steady pace. Her arms were extended to help her keep her balance.

Kankuro easily moved in step, walking next to the fence on which she balanced. They didn't look at each other, but both recognized the other's presence.

After a few minutes in silence, Ko made a slight noise of nervousness as her foot faltered. Kankuro easily held up his hand to clasp on to hers, steadying her.

They moved on.

In silence, the pair listened to the rain and moved slowly onward. This troubled Kankuro. Despite only knowing her for three days, it seemed uncharacteristic for her to be so quiet. He glanced up at her face. She was blank of all emotion. He studied her more carefully and...Ah, there it was! Kankuro noticed a slight furrow in her eyebrows. What that meant though, he had no idea.

"What's wrong?" Kankuro asked.

She didn't look down on him, nor did she speak.

The rain continued around them.

A small belch of thunder rumbled off in the distance. Kankuro could tell it was a good ten miles from where they were. The storm would be moving on soon.

"Can you balance on a fence?" Ko questioned, her voice surprisingly calm.

He looked up at her to see she was staring at him intensely.

"Well, sure," he said. "I am a ninja, after all."

She tugged on his hand, pulling him gently upward. He smiled at her and swiftly jumped, easily balancing behind her. Ko seemed a bit disoriented by his display of skill.

"Whoa," she mumbled, her feet faltering again.

Kankuro placed his hands on her waist to steady her. "You okay?" he asked, leaning in to her ear. She nodded numbly. "Yeah."

They continued walking in the rain.

He relished the feeling of her body. His hands were wrapped around her hips, clenching on to the curve her waist made to reach her torso. He liked that she, unlike every girl he knew, had a shapely ass rather than monstrous breasts. He liked that her wet hands cemented his hold on her, keeping them in place.

"Alright then, it's my turn to ask a question," Ko said. Kankuro smiled; glad they were continuing the game. He hoped this would bring her out of her funk. "How do you feel about pregnancy?"

Kankuro stopped walking. "What?"

Ko didn't turn around to face him. It almost seemed like she couldn't. She sighed. "You know, pregnancy? When a boy and a girl get naked and touch each other and the cells from their bodies join together to make a tiny living, breathing, thinking person. Conception," she said wearily. A ghost of a smile touched her face. "God Kankuro, I thought you knew how people were made."

He laughed, but it felt too brittle in his throat, like he was laughing too hard at a joke that wasn't at all funny. "Well," he mumbled cautiously, licking his lips, "I can't say I'm exactly eager to have a kid but...I mean...I don't...I don't know. It doesn't bother me...or anything. Why?" He noted with a bit of fear that last night she had said she liked kids. What was she implying? "You're not...you're...you're not pregnant...are you?"

Ko swiveled on her feet to face him at last. She was smiling her familiar smile, on the brink of cracking. She began to giggle, which put Kankuro at ease. "Are you serious? What on earth gave you an idea like that?" she said, laughing. He let out an audible breath of relief as she started laughing hard.

"Don't scare me like that!" he reprimanded, jostling her hips softly. "I thought you were about to give me some huge confession of how you made some huge mistake back in Waterfall and didn't know how to tell anyone!" She grasped onto his elbows as she doubled over from laughter.

"Of course I'm not," she said, her giggling dying down. She let out a few deep breaths and averted her eyes. "No," she murmured, almost sadly. "I don't believe in stuff like that until you're like, really in love with someone. And not the whole 'teenage sweetheart' shit either—like the legit stuff."

Kankuro nodded. He was like that too, he guessed. (But he would always be willing to compromise his principles with someone like her should her beliefs change.) He contemplated her face. There was an underlying meaning to what she was saying. He carefully asked, "Then what's the matter?"

She looked uncomfortable, for the first time. Ko glanced at her hands on his arms, noticing his hands on the small of her back. Gripping the crook of his elbows, she pulled herself gradually closer to him until they were almost touching. He let out a shaky breath.

"It's my sister," she said quietly. She looked up at him, in a tender, mournful manner. "I just...I don't know what to do. It's so sad, seeing her have to go through this."

"Isn't being pregnant supposed to be...you know... a good thing?" Kankuro asked. He could have hit himself for being so blunt. She stared up at him and cracked a half-smile.

Her smile faltered and he had never before seen anyone look so miserable.

Ko picked her hands up and slid them around his back. "Yeah," she whispered. "It is." She swallowed and her breath hitched. "But it's complicated," her voice cracked. She pressed the side of her face into his chest.

It took Kankuro a moment to realize she was crying. He was wet as it was, but he noticed because the water on his stomach became warm, and her breath heaved and she made crying noises.

He liked that she was not a pretty crier. Her face grew red as it clenched together, willing the tears to come out. Her nose was runny and her hair fell in her face. She choked out her tears, making moaning noises as she bawled. It was rare that he got to see a girl so rawly emotional.

"_I hate living here_!" she sobbed. "I hate Kana for being so stupid to go on a date with Aisuke! I hate Aisuke for being so perfect! I hate Kana for getting engaged to him! I hate Kana for fucking the bastard! I hate her for getting knocked up! I hate him for not being fucking man enough to accept that he was going to have a kid before he got married! I hate him for running out on her! I hate that my family is too old-fashioned to deal with a pregnant kid out of wedlock! I hate that I was the only one that would come out to this fucking desert with her when she got banished! I hate that I got disowned too, even though I've tried so hard to please my fucking parents _all my fucking life_! I don't even have a fucking family name now! I hate him for deciding that now, after living in this fucking place for three months when the baby's almost due, that now he does want the kid and thinks now's a great time to try and find us! And I hate that I'm glad that you're life sucks, Kankuro, because for once it's _fucking swell_ to meet someone whose life _fucking sucks too_!"

And with that, her knees gave out.

Kankuro bent to catch her in his arms. She completely collapsed. He jumped to the ground and they both fell into the mud. Kankuro accepted that he was crying too. He didn't even know why. They just held each other in the wet earth and cried.

It was close to an hour before they were contained enough to say anything.

"He called today," Ko said quietly.

"He did?" Kankuro asked. He ran his fingers down her clammy back. She pressed her forehead into his chest.

"Yeah. I picked up the phone. My sister was resting in her room, because she's tired of washing clothes and decorating the baby's room and working all the time. He told me that he was sorry for what he did to my sister and that he wanted to talk to her. And of course, I started bawling and screaming at him, telling him he's a fucking pussy. He can't even take care of this kid that hasn't been born yet...Poor little guy...he has no idea that he's going to be born into all this shit."

Kankuro nodded. "I know what you mean. That's how I feel about my little brother."

Ko let out a small smile and a breath of laughter. "I'm so scared for him. And I feel terrible too, because with all the yelling I was doing, I woke my sister up, who had no idea what was going on. So she asks who's on the phone and I tell her. She asks to talk to him and I slam the phone down so she can't. And then we started yelling at each other."

"And then you came out here and met up with me," Kankuro finished gently for her. She nodded into him. "And I'm so glad that you're here with me. Really."

He heard her chuckle softly as she raised her head and wiped at her eyes. "God, I'm such a mess," she mumbled.

Kankuro took her hands in his.

"Can I ask you something?" he questioned quietly.

"Ask away," she muttered.

"Is it bad that I've never wanted to kiss anyone as bad as I want to kiss you right now?"

She looked up at him with a start. Their eyes were still rimmed with red, their noses still runny. Her hair, in an increasingly messy bun, was just as disheveled as his shaggy brown mop. Their clothes were soaked and they had both bared their soul to one another. It went back to their eyes again; her blue eyes and his brown eyes. She realized how close they were. And how she had never been so emotionally relieved.

"No," she whispered as she slid a hand up to each side of his face. "It isn't bad at all."

He put his hands at the back of her head and leaned in to her.

Ko pulled his face to meet hers and their lips touched.

And touched. And touched. And touched.

Kankuro could feel her smiling. He couldn't blame her. He'd never been so happy to be with another person either.

He'd never been so happy that a girl had met the real him. He'd never been so happy that she'd never seen his Kabuki paint or puppets or ninja abilities. He'd never been so happy their lives were complete. He'd never been so happy that this girl was more real than anything he had ever tasted before.

And he'd never been so happy it was raining in Suna.


End file.
